Oh those internet rumors.
In the age of social media, unanswered questions rarely stay “unanswered” for long. Instead, they are often replaced by theories that spread faster than verified facts – fueled by algorithms, online communities and our fascination with true crime.
That’s exactly what’s been happening recently after separate incidents where bodies were pulled from suburban waterways, including here in the Fox Valley.
Reddit, TikTok, Facebook – you name it – have been awash with the musings of would-be sleuths pushing out the theory there might be a serial killer on the loose. Over the Fourth of July weekend alone, I heard this chatter at three separate holiday gatherings.
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“Something doesn’t seem right … stay safe out there,” warned one poster who included a map of the areas where bodies have been recovered in the last few months.
This early summer online frenzy over bodies in waterways even revived interest in the long-debated Smiley Face Killer theory, which alleges a network of bad guys has been targeting young men since the late 1990s and dumping them into bodies of water across 11 states, including parts of the Midwest. And I have a suspicion the recent Max documentary “Bodies in the Water,” which examines deaths in rivers, lakes, reservoirs and such has likely exposed an even wider audience to the kind of online speculation playing out in the Chicago area.
Not that I want facts to get in the way of a true crime column, but there’s no indication from law enforcement that foul play was suspected in any of these unfortunate incidents, a statement NBC Chicago even felt compelled to report after receiving so many inquiries over a slew of death investigations that spanned from Chicago to Elk Grove Village to Aurora.
That does not necessarily stop the rumors, however, and in fact can fuel the fire because, without a lot of details, the tendency is to want to fill in the blanks.
Jim Levicki, who handles media inquiries for the Aurora Police Department, acknowledged that the lack of publicly available information about these cases can fuel online speculation. When official details are scarce and “basic questions can’t be answered with a quick Google search,” he noted, people begin drawing conclusions.
But in his role, “I’d rather err on the side of victim privacy,” Levicki insisted, which outweighs the desire to satisfy public curiosity, even if it leaves room for others to create their own interpretations.
Levicki also pointed out that if investigators had a reasonable suspicion that bodies from different communities were connected, the case would not remain confined to one police department.
It would go to the Fox Valley Major Crimes Task Force, a regional team of investigators from agencies throughout the area that brings together detectives, evidence specialists and intelligence from across jurisdictional lines to determine whether seemingly isolated cases are in fact linked.
There are cases, by the way, of online discussions across the nation helping to solve mysteries by raising otherwise overlooked details. But they also create plenty of what can be described as “digital red strings” stretching between unrelated tragedies.
Here’s the deal: Amateur detectives have always existed – mostly around coffee shops rather than algorithms. And in most cases, curiosity is a healthy thing. But we shouldn’t lose sight of the people at the center of these tragedies, who were more than names on a news report or pins on an online map.
They were loved. And they are missed.